


Plausible Deniability

by levitatethis



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Reality, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-18
Updated: 2010-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 13:22:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mohinder and Sylar are forced to work together again, but a past indiscretion is not easily forgotten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plausible Deniability

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Mylar Fic prompt: "Your lips say that you love. Your eyes say that you hate." - Linkin Park

“Miss me?”

Mohinder glances up from the file in his hand and narrows his eyes in irritation at Sylar’s jovial grin. He knows Sylar expects him to huff a curt, ‘hardly,’ and though that very reply is on the tip of his tongue, he veers off the chosen course with a different reply.

“Almost, but Bennet keeps forcing us to work together, making it difficult to lament your absence when you’re not around.

The flash of surprise across Sylar’s face is well worth it for Mohinder and he sighs with self-congratulatory content. Sylar slides into the booth across from him and lowers his gaze to the file, which Mohinder closes and hands over. While Sylar flips through the notes, Mohinder waves the waitress over for a refill of coffee and a second one for Sylar who he studies closely.

Suddenly Sylar’s eyes flicker up to his. “Montana?”

It is said quietly enough to suggest nothing profound, but Mohinder can hear the perplexing inflection of nostalgia. His own feelings on the matter—not only returning to the place where he and “Zane” had traveled together at the beginning of this unending nightmare, but stopping at _that_ motel specifically (where talk of a shared destiny was at once unnerving and hope inducing, gnawing a pit in Mohinder’s stomach that led him to suspect and ultimately discover his companion in the room next door was really Sylar in disguise)—are a confused lot.

He imagines there is something disturbingly poetic in returning there with the same man, albeit now with a shared history of adversarial battles and a tentative partnership at Bennet’s professional insistence. Bennet told Mohinder as much the first time he decided Sylar would work best with him on certain assignments.

_“Look Suresh, right now there are bigger problems than your personal issues with Sylar. He’s willing to work with us and we could use his nearly unmatched strength. It will only be this one time—,” _

_“Would you tell Claire the same thing?” _

_“…this isn’t about Claire.” _

_“Of course not. I can’t believe you’re asking me—,” _

_“To put the welfare of hundreds, maybe thousands, of people before your own?” _

_“That’s not fair.” _

_“I never said it was, but it’s what we’re facing. If I could put Sylar with someone else I would.” _

_“You can.” _

_“I don’t trust him with anyone, but you. You’re the only one I know for certain he won’t try to kill.” _

_“Do you know anything about my history with him?” _

_“Yes. That’s why I’m doing this. Let me be clear, Mohinder. Sylar doesn’t want to kill you.” _

_“Right…no powers…one of us, one of them.” _

_“…not exactly.” _

_“…Noah?” _

_“Just trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”_

Trust. What a joke. One assignment turned into six, making this one, lucky number seven. The silent treatment during their first time out together (mostly one-sided, with Mohinder ignoring Sylar’s purposely annoying taunts) only lasted a few hours, until a fight over the car radio demanded a mandatory truce. Mohinder grudgingly gave himself permission to engage Sylar in discussions of work—and _only_ work—as a necessary compromise towards getting the job done with as little turmoil as possible.

Sylar followed suit, but thinking back on those times now, Mohinder sees how Sylar placated him by purporting to follow the rules at first before slowly redirecting their conversations—with a question or offhand comment—until Mohinder was drawing on personal anecdotes, and not just to kill time, but because he felt like sharing those stories. Part of Sylar’s cunning brilliance was the way he seemed to share his own personal experiences easily in return, yet with careful consideration Mohinder could see there was still much, understandably, guarded between them.

They were cautious with one another. Sarcastic jabs were one thing, talk of the biological impetus behind abilities was simple enough, but beyond that lay very unstable ground they approached prudently. Mohinder couldn’t stand to laugh or smile easily and instinctively with Sylar, berating himself for those transgressions. He despised Sylar for being able to reach inside him, to something far more personal, and hold on with an unbreakable grip. It was another example of Sylar manipulating him and Mohinder resisted it as best he could. He accepted the delusional moments of camaraderie while refusing to let them cloud his mind to the truth—Sylar was a killer, selfish to the core.

Of course, there was that one time when—

“Who said you can’t go home again?” Sylar raises an eyebrow and closes the file, placing it on the table.

“Bennet has a strange sense of humour,” Mohinder scoffs and adds with obvious irritation, “More like returning to the scene of the crime. Well, one of many crimes.” He takes a sip of coffee.

Sylar pulls his mouth into a tight line and proceeds to put four packages of sugar into his coffee before taking the first sip, a nod to the bitterness he has previously mentioned disliking. Mohinder thinks he should have ordered them both hot chocolate—a shared favourite they had discovered the year before during an assignment in Montreal—then quickly chastises himself for tripping into friend mode. The point of coffee is to keep them both on edge with each other and focused on work rather than each other.

_Playing pretend.   
_  
Sylar takes a sip and makes a distasteful face at the mug before putting it down and sliding it to the side. Leaning back in his seat he drops one hand to his side and rests the other one on the table’s surface, tracing his fingers in a circular pattern. He levels dark eyes at Mohinder.

“There you go accentuating the positive,” Sylar observes dryly. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that a negative mind only serves to shorten your lifespan?”

Mohinder refuses to be baited into talking about his family. He is unclear if Sylar is bringing up his mother out of genuine curiosity about a Suresh he hasn’t met or to drive home a point that she’s a widow and Mohinder is fatherless because of him.

“You would know about the sanctity of life.” Mohinder returns the gaze. Seeing Sylar curl his fingers into a fist, Mohinder looks out the window to this left and stares at the half-filled parking lot.

After a few seconds he feels Sylar’s leg nudge against his. Mohinder pulls his leg back and furrows his brow, never shifting his attention from outside the restaurant. Another few seconds pass when he feels Sylar’s leg again, this time with more pressure exerted against his. Mohinder sits back as far as possible in the booth and glares at Sylar who smiles in return.

“As usual you’re in a chipper mood,” Sylar turns in his seat, bringing his right arm up to lie across the top of the backrest. With his left hand he telekinetically commands Mohinder’s mug to slide over next to his.

Mohinder recognizes the gesture telling him to give the attitude a rest. It’s easier said than done.

“What can I say—you bring out the best in me.” Mohinder is cool in his reply.

“Now you’re just flattering me,” Sylar says and points at him. “But you’re right—I bring out the _real_ you.”

Before Mohinder can argue the statement, Sylar shifts forward slightly and asks, “Can you honestly say you’d want to go back to being the person you were before we met?”

“Do I wish you hadn’t destroyed so many lives?” Mohinder asks disbelieving the nerve of the question being posed.

Sylar is all seriousness as he rests his arms on the table and leans halfway across it. “I’m not talking about all of that. I’m talking about you—the person you were in India versus the person you’ve become.”

Mohinder mimics the gesture. “Those come hand-in-hand—,”

He stops short as he realizes how it sounds spoken out loud. It’s an unintentionally intimate confession.

“With me?” Sylar finishes the sentence.

Mohinder bites the inside of his cheek to keep form fixating on the tiny smile he can see tugging at the corners of Sylar’s lips. “It’s not a compliment,” he dismisses.

There is a contemplative pause before Sylar says, “I never said it was.”

Their gaze holds and the discomfort of feeling scrutinized prompts Mohinder to reach for his mug. It refuses to budge and he finds Sylar eyeing him expectantly. Mohinder sighs and folds his arms across his chest. He is not going to get out of this conversation and he can already tell it’s going to be far deeper than he’d like. If he plays ignorant, however, Sylar will only drag it out and all Mohinder really wants to do is get on the road and finish this assignment as fast as possible.

“You know very well that my life is tied up with yours,” he says to Sylar with a heartfelt reverence that surprises even him. “Much of which is because of your own doing. Believe me, if I could change that, I would.”

Sylar has the gall to look hurt and a pang of guilt reactively flips Mohinder’s stomach. But when Sylar narrows his eyes inquisitively, Mohinder remembers Peter’s warning from around the time of his second assignment with Sylar.

_“Be careful around him, Mohinder. My mom fed him someone who can see into the past by reading memories as a present once. Don’t ask. But he…he can be dangerous in more ways than one.”_

If it were a couple of years earlier, Mohinder wouldn’t worry about the truth behind his words. But now…he has reconciled with parts of his past in his own way, nothing that can be adequately explained for the consumption of others. He has grown accustomed to Sylar, familiar with Sylar’s almost regular presence in his life, to the point where meddling with it (from its origins to its present state) has fallen low on the list of things that drives and motivates him. Apparently vengeance has a shelf life.

And now there is that one slip in an unexpected moment, when—

Sylar slides Mohinder’s mug over and sits up straight, his eyes never straying from Mohinder’s.

“I wouldn’t change any of it either,” Sylar says knowingly. “There was a time when escaping my past was everything to me, but without it—,”

He raises his arms. “We wouldn’t be here.”

“And _here_ is a good thing?”

It’s a relatively straightforward question, yet the slightly amused edge to it alters the tension between them as if a stifling weight has been, not lifted, but shifted to a better position, making it easier to sustain.

“It’s all about perspective.” Sylar cocks a half smile.

“Subjectively appropriating the past?” Mohinder muses.

Sylar touches his right index finger to his nose.

“It doesn’t change anything,” Mohinder mutters, gazing down at his mug.

“Correction,” is Sylar’s firm response. “It changes _everything_.”

Mohinder looks up and pushes his mug away. “Why? Because nothing is as it seems?”

“Nothing _is_ as it seems,” Sylar argues.

Mohinder juts his index finger against the tables, emphasizing his point as he asks, “Oh, so you get to play both the hero and the villain?”

“You know all about that.” Sylar doesn’t miss a beat as he casually makes a show of scratching his neck.

It is the same place where, on Mohinder’s neck, scales once grew following a botched foray into unethical mad science.

Mohinder swallows his embarrassment and Sylar says, “But I don’t judge you for it.”

Which in itself is a half-truth or white lie. Mohinder endured months of sidelong glances from people following the fiasco of developing a serum that gave abilities to people. Even Peter, who he considers his closest friend, showed difficulty masking disappointment in Mohinder’s actions.

Sylar, on the other hand, looked at him with little change in his flat expression. He asked a few curious questions away from prying eyes and ears, otherwise he kept his opinion (and sharp words) to himself. It wasn’t exactly indifference or understanding, however, more like Sylar was making a mental note for future reference. _See Mohinder, we’re not so different. We were always meant to cross paths. Destiny. You’re fated to me._

Mohinder clears his throat. “Unlike you, my _intentions_ did not include hurting people.”

“I’m sure they feel a lot better knowing that—the Hunger made you do it,” Sylar quips. He smirks when Mohinder wrinkles his nose and says, “Whatever helps everyone sleep at night, right?”

Mohinder raises an eyebrow.

Sylar gestures to the passing waitress for the bill then turns back to the conversation. “No one likes to admit they’re capable of things considered bad by society. You’re no exception.”

“And you are?”

“I accept who I am.”

“You make excuses. You justify the means. That doesn’t make you any more _evolved_.”

They are briefly interrupted by the cheque being placed with a soft clatter of the tray between them.

“And you spouting psycho-babble doesn’t make you any less culpable,” Sylar insists after the waitress walks away.

_You were there too.   
_  
Mohinder puts more effort than necessary into appearing distracted as he gets money out. He does not want to give Sylar the satisfaction of knowing that he knows they are talking about more than abilities and questionable motivations. Mohinder wants to sweep what happened under the carpet—a mistake, a momentary lapse in judgment, an act. Nothing more. They haven’t spoken about it and just when Mohinder thought it was safely forgotten it is now rumbling about like a restless elephant in the room.

He tosses a couple of bills on the table, grabs the file, and gets up, heading to the door with Sylar behind him. Staying a few feet behind is neither a submissive or polite gesture on Sylar’s part. From that position he can see the big picture and loom over it. Mohinder remains squarely in his crosshairs, a fact that ensures Mohinder maintains a brisk pace as he enters into the comfortably crisp early evening, leading Sylar to the car.

“Mohinder.”

Despite the one-half demanding, one-half apologetic tone, Mohinder keeps walking, reaching for the car keys in his pocket. He awkwardly fumbles them in his right hand as Sylar calls out his name again. Mohinder doesn’t want to have this conversation and he certainly doesn’t want to reveal more of himself to Sylar that will only add another caveat to what makes their relationship more complicated and emotionally intimate (for good, bad or worse) than any other in his life.

Mohinder slows his approach to the car and hears Sylar’s quickened steps behind him. Suddenly Mohinder feels himself nudged to turn around while the keys are pulled from his hand by an invisible force and tossed to the ground.

“You can’t be serious! What are you, twelve?” Mohinder asks incredulously.

Sylar stands tall in front of him and glowers. “We’re not finished talking.”

Mohinder scoffs. “I beg to differ.” Taking a step forward, he glances to the side, making sure no one is listening in, then hisses, “Let’s just deal with the job at hand.”

Sylar snatches the file from Mohinder and, waving it between them, retorts, “The job can wait. I’m more interested in what has you wanting to play mute.”

“Maybe I’ve realized you’re not that interesting to converse with.” The moment the words are out of his mouth, Mohinder knows it is the wrong thing to say.

In a split second Sylar is pushing forward into his space, forcing Mohinder to step back. With their eyes clasped—Sylar staring down at him and Mohinder defiantly returning the challenge—Mohinder doesn’t realize he is trapped between Sylar and the car until his back hits the door.

Sylar extends his left arm past Mohinder to place the file on the car’s roof. The movement inches their faces closer together and Mohinder’s breath hitches as his brain unlocks the memory he has been trying to bury since its inception.

_New York, New York. They have been shadowing Marguerite Blanchard for four days and she has proven to be the cipher Bennet warned them about—CEO by day, snapping bones in half through a touch, by night. It seems the way to the top is on a lot of broken backs. _

_If their cover is blown before she can be properly, safely, apprised of their intent (bringing her into the fold to use her abilities for something more beneficial to society—or at least called upon when her services are required against those who are more deadly and unforgiving), there will undoubtedly be trouble, putting Mohinder more at risk than Sylar (who is, unsurprisingly, enamored with the possibility of going one-on-one with her). _

_Mohinder and Sylar have been disagreeing on their cover story. When Bennet sent them on their way, he didn’t care what they came up with as long as they didn’t compromise the assignment. Mohinder bit his tongue to keep from snapping that if it was such a crucial case Bennet should be handling it himself instead of making them do his dirty work. _

_As it is, they find themselves at a gallery opening where they accidentally lose her in the crowd. Panicked she might be turning someone into a human pretzel, Sylar adjusts his hearing and leads Mohinder through the maze of people to the start of a hallway that leads to the washrooms in the back. _

_Mohinder and Sylar are debating whether to check those rooms when Marguerite suddenly emerges from the woman’s washroom at the far end of the hall. Mohinder quickly turns toward Sylar who pushes him up against the wall and kisses him. Or does he kiss Sylar first? Does it even matter? It’s strange, harder than Mohinder expects (and when had he started contemplating what a kiss with Sylar would feel like?), but warm. _

_Mohinder is frozen in surprise, yet interestingly enough he becomes aware that his right hand is playing with the cuff of Sylar’s sleeve. Mohinder wonders what his body knows that his mind doesn’t. The party drifts away further into the background and all that remains are their bodies pressed against each other, stuck in a blip of time that doesn’t move. _

_It’s over just as fast and, besides a small (questioning) crease between Sylar’s eyes, they both turn back to the party without a word, Marguerite casting an amused smile at them over her shoulders._

Mohinder sucks in a sharp breath. “What the hell are you—,”

This time when Sylar kisses him, although the action is deliberate, the kiss itself is soft and tentative, filled with a question seeking—acceptance? Encouragement? Mohinder offers neither, so shocked is he at the boldness of Sylar’s move and the rush that races through his body, flipping his stomach and telling him that this is _right_.

Sylar doesn’t back off but the kiss stays chaste, as two sets of lips lightly brushing against each other.

A million thoughts scream at Mohinder that this is a power-play move by Sylar to catch him off guard for no purpose but to mock him later, laugh at the faint flush that tints Mohinder’s skin and is skyrocketing his temperature. This is Sylar winking with a jeer at the last time—their first and only other kiss—as if to say, _‘You’re way too easy.’_ This kiss is Sylar manipulating confusion into a weapon. It is Sylar—

Wanting _him_.

At once, all those things Mohinder tried not to think about flash through his head—the ones that took control of his dreams until he was coming hard in bed, arching up into the tight fist he had wrapped around his cock; the daydream kisses that drew a strong heat up the back of his neck when he should be working; the drifting imaginings of a normal life with this man, hand-in-hand or pressed together in bed, basking in the afterglow of a thoroughly hard fuck and trailing fingers along the contours of their bodies while murmuring against each others skin; lazy Sundays stretched out on the sofa with Sylar between his legs resting his back to Mohinder’s chest, sipping hot chocolate as they talk about the newest discoveries in Mohinder’s research and another new ability found in someone somewhere in the world.

It is too much. And just enough.

When Sylar moves back, less than an inch, Mohinder instinctively leans forward. He cups his right hand around Sylar’s neck and presses their lips together, more urgently than before. There is a small jolt in Sylar’s body then he is curving back against him in response. Mohinder parts his mouth and Sylar slips his tongue across his lips, simultaneously deepening the kiss while leading them both into a mind-twisting overdose, tasting each other.

Mohinder arches up, forcing his chest flush to Sylar, who first grips Mohinder’s waist with both hands then wraps his arms tightly around him. Sylar’s stubble brushes roughly against Mohinder’s cheek and Mohinder revels in the burning scrape left in its wake as it irrefutably anchors him to the present.

Returning the favour, Mohinder presses the fingers of his right hand into Sylar’s neck, sure to leave an interesting mark for discerning eyes. He trails his left hand up to the collar of Sylar’s shirt, teasing the material between his fingers, before pressing the palm of his hand to Sylar’s chest, just above his heart.

Where one of them ends and the other begins is unclear, if it ever really made sense. In this stolen moment they are not enemies facing oblivion or demanding retribution, they are not putting up with one another for an allotted amount of time, but there is nothing certain about what they have become.

In a fluid movement, both caught up in the haze of so much all at once, Sylar pulls Mohinder to him then pushes both their bodies in the other direction, knocking Mohinder against the car. The impact elicits a grunt from Mohinder and Sylar angles his head back, out of the kiss, with a look of concern beneath hooded eyes that travels back and forth between Mohinder’s eyes and mouth. Once he realizes Mohinder is not hurt he moves in to continue their kiss but Mohinder stops him.

Sylar is not dissuaded. In a low voice he says, “I knew it.”

Breathing heavily, Mohinder asks, “What? How?”

Resting his body against Mohinder’s, Sylar brings his left hand to the side of Mohinder’s neck and fingers a stray curl of hair by his neck. “Because I’ve been thinking the same thing all this time. I told you, we’re not that different.”

Relief and surprise has Mohinder quietly exhaling with resignation at what must happen next, no question. “This…this can’t happen.”

“Too late.” Sylar presses his right hand to the small of Mohinder’s back.

“It can’t happen _again_.” Mohinder is sure to sound firm as he clarifies his meaning.

Sylar tenses his jaw. “Why not?”

Mohinder takes a deep breath and moves his right hand from Sylar’s neck over to the one Sylar still has over his shoulder, gently tugging at his hair, and pushes it down. “Besides the insanity of us—and where do I even begin on that front? Besides all the people who would be hurt in the process—and that’s far too numerous a list to ignore. Besides the danger of—,”

“Yes, besides all of that.”

Mohinder fixes Sylar with a stern stare until Sylar drops his hands to his side and takes a step back, rolling his eyes in a manner that is strangely affectionate despite being put off by the turn of events.

Mohinder doesn’t know _what_ to say and he has no idea _how_ to say it. Everything is a mess in his head and his body is singing its own tune, but losing the war. “There’s no other way for this to be.”

It sounds like a copout and the worse kind of avoidance, but when Mohinder truly contemplates what’s happening with him and Sylar, it’s the only thing he wills himself to give.

Sylar regards him for a few seconds then reaches for Mohinder’s hand and slips the car keys (at some point retrieved without Mohinder’s knowledge, from the ground) into his palm. Unexpectedly, Sylar leans forward. For a moment, Mohinder thinks that Sylar is ignoring what he has said and braces for another kiss, hoping to stop his body from betraying him this time.

Sylar holds their gaze and hovers his lips over Mohinder’s. “We should get going,” he says and reaches for the file on the car’s roof. Backing up a few feet, he holds it up and raises an eyebrow.

Mohinder watches him walk around the back of the car to the passenger side. Using telekinesis to open it, Sylar pauses.

“_Knowing_ that this,” Sylar nods in Mohinder’s direction and purses his lips, reconsidering his words. “Knowing is enough.”

Mohinder lets out the breath he has no idea he is holding and accepts Sylar’s (strange) understanding, giving him a crooked half-smile in return. Opening the driver’s door he meets Sylar’s eyes and stops, caught in the focused and intense stare Sylar has trained on him. Mohinder furrows his brow.

Sylar smirks. “It’s enough. _For now_.”

Sylar gets into the car and closes the door behind him, leaving Mohinder standing confused, worried and expectant. Of course Sylar would show a trace amount of humanity then demand more. In doing so, he reminds Mohinder there are no defined boundaries, at least nothing that can’t be renegotiated through back and forth maneuvering, suggestive hints and forced acknowledgements.

Sylar is relentless. And Mohinder is stubborn. It’s a potent—problematic—exhilarating mix. Always has been.

Mohinder sighs and rubs at his eyes, already exhausted at the mere thought of what lies ahead, before getting into the car.

Sylar isn’t going to let any of this go.

Mohinder would expect nothing else.   
 

**Author's Note:**

> Mylar Fic  
> **Runner Up in biweekly contest (2nd week)**


End file.
